Verizon, long known in the carrier business for being a bunch of jerks, have once again proven their general aptitude for jerkery with a pretty annoying modification to their versions of the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge. Specifically? They removed Samsung Pay. We verified this on our own devices, and reviewers are now citing Samsung in saying that Verizon demanded it be removed from the phones.

Why? Well, given that Verizon is a member of the now-defunct Softcard group that is currently partnered with (read: taking money from) Android Pay, it seems probable that Samsung wasn't willing to cut Verizon in on Samsung Pay revenue - if there is any - to the degree they desired. And so, Verizon strong-armed Samsung into removing the app. This is objectively dumb. Searching the Play Store or Galaxy Apps from Verizon's S7 or S7 edge for "Samsung Pay" yields no results.

The good news? It appears Samsung Pay is easily sideloaded onto Verizon S7 and S7 edges. I just tested an APK from Android Police's sister site APK Mirror, which you can find right here, and added a card and put the phone into MST mode, and it seems to work just fine. I haven't actually paid for anything, but if you get that far, presumably it's functional.

There is some suggestion that the Samsung Pay app, while not pre-loaded on Verizon's S7 or S7 edge, will become downloadable via the Play Store and/or Galaxy Apps on March 11th, when a major new Samsung Pay promotion goes live. We will update this post at that time if this is the case.

We've spoken with Samsung, and they have clarified that while Samsung Pay currently cannot be installed via the Play Store or Galaxy Apps on the Verizon model, it will be available to Verizon Galaxy S7s and S7 edges via those channels starting on March 11th, the official launch date for the phones. Samsung Pay is not pre-loaded on Verizon models, unlike some other US carriers, and Verizon does not advertise the app - and even went so far as to strip it from the user manuals of its versions of the S7 and S7 edge - but sideloading will not be necessary by the time we reach the retail launch date for the devices.